Russians Open Churches In Africa: Is It ‘Spiritual Colonialism’?
When Madagascan priest Alexey Herizo finally received his ordination, it did not come from the ancient Greek Orthodox Church he had long pursued. Instead, it came from the Russian Orthodox Church, an institution that, until just a few years ago, barely existed in sub-Saharan Africa.
The two Orthodox churches are now competing for the same continent. One has been there since the first century, while the other arrived in December 2021 — and has expanded with striking speed.
It has become more than just a turf battle between the two churches over the hearts and minds of local Orthodox priests and laypeople. To some observers, it’s part of a growing, concerning trend of Russia deepening geopolitical ties throughout Africa, and leveraging soft power to remake the continent in its own image.
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The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate (Office) of Alexandria and All Africa traces its origins back to the year 43 AD. It has historically been the church to which all Orthodox Christians in Africa belong, and among Greek Orthodox, it’s considered only second in significance after Constantinople, the spiritual and administrative center of the church.
Black African Christians now make up the majority of its faithful, while most of its bishops continue to be Greeks. It runs a Theological School in Nairobi, which has been training clergy since its opening in 1981.
The Russian Orthodox Church, by contrast, had a single congregation in sub-Saharan Africa as recently as 2022, in South Africa, with its remaining African parishes confined to Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. On Dec. 29, 2021, the Russian Orthodox Church admitted 102 clergy, drawn from eight African countries, into the jurisdiction of the Moscow office, and simultaneously created the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa, serving the entire continent.
The decision came amid the Ukraine War and a larger conversation in the international Orthodox church about the legitimacy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
The Russian church said the move in Africa was to give protection to clergy unwilling to remain under the leadership of those who had recognized the independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
But the Greek Orthodox Church condemned the establishment of the Russian office as an "immoral invasion" and was improperly intruding into its territory, ignoring customs about church authority and jurisdiction and behaving in a way that resembles colonial expansion.
Last year, the Russian Orthodox Church had more than 350 parishes and congregations across at least 34 African countries, with 270 clergy, many of whom previously served in the Greek Orthodox Church. Father Yuri Maksimov, head of the missionary department of the Russian Orthodox African Exarchate, has described it as possibly the most significant expansion in the church's history.
A study by Father Evangelos Thiani, an academic and Kenyan priest in the Greek Orthodox Church, found that the Russians attracted priests with better salaries, promises of church construction, and rapid promotion.
Herizo, the Madagascan priest, had waited years to be accepted by the Greek Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox Church accepted him, he told the Japan Times, with “open arms.” He said he completed online training with a seminary in Moscow and three months of on-site practical training in 2023, and was ordained as a deacon and then a priest within a few days.
A Greek Orthodox priest in Africa, speaking to the Orthodox Times without being named, described those switching as “often problematic [people] already facing issues with their Greek Orthodox bishops," who found an opening through what he called the “Russian intrusion.”
According to the Russian church’s website as of May, 60 seminarians from 16 African countries are currently studying at nine theological schools in Russia. Bishop Konstantin, speaking to the Russian news site RIA Novosti, confirmed that all lessons are conducted in Russian and that candidates must learn the language before they can follow the curriculum.
At churches around Africa on Sunday mornings, local languages are featured in worship when resident African clergy are in place.
Father Nicholas Esterhuizen, rector of a local church in Cape Town, said in an interview with orthochristian.com that his parish conducts services in English and Church Slavonic, with Xhosa and Afrikaans also used.
The profile of those joining the Russian churches varies by country. In South Africa, the ROC has mainly recruited from Afrikaans-speaking communities, with its conservative values appealing to that group, while also running outreach programs to rural Black communities. More than 100 of the Russian Church’s clergy are based in Kenya.
Several analysts and religious figures have linked the church's expansion to broader Russian foreign policy on the continent. Russia has simultaneously increased African student placements at Russian universities almost threefold, to more than 5,300 places, and launched Sputnik editorial bureaus in Ethiopia and South Africa.
Tom Southern, director of special projects at the Center for Information Sustainability, who has studied the expansion, described its goal as bringing more African countries into Russia's orbit.
“It’s like spiritual colonialism,” he said.
Bishop Joshua Dhube, retired head of the United Baptist Church in Zimbabwe and a former government minister, told Broadview Magazine: “The Russian Orthodox Church is the Trojan Horse for the Kremlin’s agenda to win hearts and minds in Africa.”
Metropolitan Constantine of Cairo, the Patriarchal Exarch for Africa, rejected the characterization, calling reports linking the ROC to Russian military recruitment in Africa "lies and slander" intended to distract from the church's work.
The Russian Church office in Africa has gone through two heads in three years. Its first, Metropolitan Leonid of Klin, was defrocked by the Greek Orthodox Alexandrian Patriarchate in November 2022 for various offenses, including “acquisition of local clergy by payments,” factionalism and “ethnic tribalism.”
His successor, Bishop Konstantin, was defrocked by the Greek Orthodox in February 2024. The Russian Orthodox Church confirmed him as head of the African Exarchate in March 2024.
In August 2024, Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria described the Russian Orthodox Church's actions as “completely unjust, anti-brotherly, anti-church and anti-canonical” and complained of a “deafening silence” from the wider Orthodox world.
“Unacceptable, unjust and unholy,” he said.
Joseph Maina is a Kenyan journalist. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and media studies from the University of Nairobi. For the past decade, he has served as a correspondent for various print and digital publications in his native Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa.